Methodologies
Design and Social Impact: A Cross-Sectoral Agenda for Design Education, Research, and Practice
This text summaries findings of the Social Impact Design Summit, held in New York on February 27, 2012. The event brought together participants from nonprofit and for-profit organizations, academic programs, government agencies, and non-governmental organizations. They represented several design disciplines: product design, graphic design, urban design, and architecture. The goal was to explore the state of an emerging design field known as “socially responsible design” or “social impact design” (8). The summit proceedings offer a snapshot of the state of the art in 2012, when this field was emerging. They outline challenges to developing impactful new forms of design, and these learnings may be transferrable to other emerging areas of design theory, like transition design. This text includes testimony and case studies from designers working in the Global South, and it identified how cultural biases can limit the emergence of new knowledge.
Smithsonian Institution Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, and National Endowment for the Arts. 2013. “Design and Social Impact: A Cross-Sectoral Agenda for Design Education, Research, and Practice.” http://tinyurl.com/3r8ppy9m.